You may have played with the Google Maps 2.5D view or its Mobile 3D offering already, and they’re certainly cool. But if you’d like to be looking at actual 3D buildings instead of a conglomeration of shaded rectangles, you might just want to give Nokia’s new Ovi Maps 3D a look. The new service offers stunningly realistic three-dimensional views of major cities around the globe, and it’s a lot of fun to explore.

You’ll need to install the Ovi Maps 3D plug-in, and you’ll also need to be using a supported browser. Mozilla’s bleeding-edge builds, for example, won’t install the plug-in. Oddly enough, Google Chrome’s Developer and Canary builds work just fine. My Core i5 laptop struggled to keep pace (likely due to its Intel integrated graphics), but when given time to catch up the virtual views were stunning. If you happen to have more muscular 3D hardware in your system, your experience should be a lot smoother.

Right now, you’re limited to a handful of global destinations including Barcelona, Boston, Copenhagen, Las Vegas, London, Milan, Oslo, San Francisco, and Venice (20 cities in total). Controls are provided to pan, zoom, and rotate, and you can also select from a list of points of interest to teleport yourself around the map.

The quality of the 3D models is quite stunning, and was achieved using C3 Technologies mapping wizardry. The company demoed its tech last year at Where 2.0, and you can check out Product Manager Ludvig Emgard’s video presentation below — along with footage of Ovi 3D maps in action.